Main navigation

Stories from Buddhism: You Are All Correct

Guo Zheng

PureInsight | October 6, 2006

[PureInsight.org] One day, a
monk was meditating on a rush cushion, with a servant standing besides
him. Outside the door, two disciples of the monk were having a serious
disagreement. Neither wanted to yield to the other and each stuck to
his own argument. They both thought only what he had enlightened to was
right.

Angrily the more senior disciple walked into the monk's room and asked,
"Master, cultivators should have no attachment to anything in the
mundane world. Honor or disgrace, gain or loss, right or wrong, good or
evil, nothing can touch a cultivator's heart. This is the true meaning
of cultivation. But the junior disciple doesn't agree with me. May I
ask you, Master, whether my opinion is right or not?"

The monk answered gently, "You are right!"

The senior disciple walked outside proudly. He acted like a victor and
told the junior disciple their master thought his opinion was right.

The junior disciple was not convinced. He then immediately walked into
the monk's room and asked, "Master, cultivators should have principles
in their hearts toward the mundane world. They should be clearly aware
of what to maintain and what to give up. They should differentiate
right from wrong and tell good from evil. That is indeed cultivation
practice. The senior disciple's understanding is wrong. Why Master, you
told him that he was right?"

The monk said, "You are correct!" Hearing the monk's remark, the junior disciple felt delighted and went out happily.

Having observing all of this, the servant standing beside the monk felt
confused. He asked the monk, "Their understandings of cultivation and
the Buddha Law are completely different. Why did you agree with both of
their arguments? Whose opinion is truly correct? "

"What you said is correct!" the monk replied to the servant.

The Buddha Law is boundless. Different cultivators have different
levels of understandings of the profundity of the Buddha Law. There is
no absolute standard in judging which opinion is right or wrong.
Cultivators' understandings are always delimited by their own knowing
of the Buddha Law at a certain level. With obtaining more enlightenment
of the Buddha Law and upgrading one's level, one will find that the
Buddha Law is extraordinarily great and profound.